Saturday, February 04, 2017

Soichiro Honda was a mechanic at a garage. His job was to tune cars to prepare them for races. Honda founded Tōkai Seiki, a piston rings manufacturing company in 1937.

This company won a contract to supply piston rings to an established automobile company - Toyota. But soon after, he lost the contract due to the poor quality of the products. He took time out to better understand Toyota's quality control processes, and by 1941, Honda was able to mass produce piston rings acceptable to Toyota.

Toyota took a 40% stake in his company, but Honda was demoted from president to senior managing director. Tōkai Seiki's manufacturing plants were destroyed in US bomb attacks in 1944. Honda sold the salvageable remains of the company to Toyota and used the proceeds to found the Honda Technical Research Institute in October 1946.

He worked with a staff of 12 men in a 172-square-foot shack. They built and sold improvised motorized bicycles by building their own copy of Tohatsu engines, and supplying these to customers to attach to their bicycles. Honda Motor Company grew in a short time to become the world's largest manufacturer of motorcycles by 1964.

Honda thereafter entered into mini pick-up trucks & finally into the car segment and today is a serious competitor to Toyota.

It’s easy to look at these companies and think, “I could never do something like this.” Of course, all of these companies took decades to get where they are today. But they had an idea and they believed in it and most importantly, they started.

Two friends, Jim and Stew, had joined a big sales company together just after graduation. Both of them worked really hard.

Three years have passed and the company‘s director promoted one of them – Stew became sales executive. Jim did not get any promotion and remained at sales department.

Jim decided that it is unfair, so he came to his boss and told him, that he doesn’t appreciate a hard working staff. The boss knew that Jim works hard, and in order to show difference between him and Stew, he asked: „Go and find anyone selling watermelons in the market. When Jim returned, the boss asked: „How much per kg?” So Jim went back to the market and then returned to say the price – $12 per kg.

Then the boss asked Stew the same thing. Stew went to the market, and when he returned he told: „at the moment there is one person selling watermelons, $12 per kg, $100 for 10 kg, now he has 340 watermelons in stock. On the table there are 48 water melons, each of them weighs about 15 kg. Water melons were bought from the South two days ago, they are fresh and good quality.

Jim was impressed by the difference between him and Stew. He realized that he needs to learn a lot from his friend.

As you can see from this story, successful people are more observant. They think and see several years ahead, while most of people see only tomorrow.

Fred Smith
was an undergraduate at Yale University in 1965. As part of the coursework, he
wrote an economics paper exploring the process of transportation of goods in
the United States. He found that the shippers relied on transporting large
packages across the United States by means of truck or passenger airplanes.
Smith thought of a more efficient transportation idea. He wrote a last minute
paper on how a company carrying small, essential items by plane could be a much
better business. He, however, did not go into details about how to actually run
such a company. His paper was graded "C". But Smith did not give
up on the idea and launched the company in 1971.

But within three years of the founding of the company, Federal Express was on the verge of bankruptcy. It was losing over $1 million a month, due to the rising fuel costs. At its zenith, the company had just $5000 to its name. Smith made a final pitch to General Dynamics for more funding. The request was turned down.

Most ordinary people would have quit at this point and shut down the company. Not Fred Smith. What he did next is easily the boldest move by the founder of a company. Smith flew to another city that weekend to raise fund, with the remaining company funds. Yes, all of the $5000. On Monday, the management of the company had a pleasant surprise lined up. FedEx had $32,000 in its bank account, which was just enough to cover the fuel for their planes and to continue operating a few days more. Soon after, the company was able to raise significant amounts in funding. Today FedEx is a global giant with operations in more than 220 countries and territories and an annual revenue of US $45 billion.

Once there was a king who received a gift of two magnificent
falcons. They were peregrine falcons, the most beautiful birds he had ever
seen. He gave the precious birds to his head falconer to be trained.

Months passed, and one day the head falconer informed the
king that though one of the falcons was flying majestically, soaring high in
the sky, the other bird had not moved from its branch since the day it had
arrived.

The king summoned healers and sorcerers from all the land to
tend to the falcon, but no one could make the bird fly.

He presented the task to the member of his court, but the
next day, the king saw through the palace window that the bird had still not
moved from its perch.

Having tried everything else, the king thought to himself,
“May be I need someone more familiar with the countryside to understand the
nature of this problem.” So he cried out to his court, “Go and get a farmer.”

In the morning, the king was thrilled to see the falcon
soaring high above the palace gardens. He said to his court, “Bring me the doer
of this miracle.”

The court quickly located the farmer, who came and stood
before the king. The king asked him, “How did you make the falcon fly?”

With his head bowed, the farmer said to the king, “It was
very easy, your highness. I simply cut the branch where the bird was sitting.”

We are all made to fly — to realize our
incredible potential as human beings. But at times we sit on our branches,
clinging to the things that are familiar to us. The possibilities are endless,
but for most of us, they remain undiscovered. We conform to the familiar, the
comfortable, and the mundane. So for the most part, our lives are mediocre
instead of exciting, thrilling and fulfilling. Let us learn to destroy the
branch of fear we cling to and free ourselves to the glory of flight!

Other links

1 In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful.2 All the praises and thanks be to Allah, the Lord of the Alameen (mankind, jinns and all that exists).3 The Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful.4 The Only Owner (and the Only Ruling Judge) of the Day of Recompense (i.e. the Day of Resurrection)5 You (Alone) we worship, and You (Alone) we ask for help (for each and everything).6 Guide us to the Straight Way7 The Way of those on whom You have bestowed Your Grace , not (the way) of those who earned Your Anger, nor of those who went astray.